How to Compress PDF File to Send as an Attachment in Your Email

Have you ever come across this type of situation: “You need to send a PDF file urgently to your friend over email; you attached the PDF file and clicked on send button and in a while you get an error message back saying the email could not be delivered because of the large size”. So how to compress a PDF file to send it as an email attachment?

Due to embedded images in the PDF file the size of the PDF file increases and causes problem while sending as an attachment. So before sending such type of PDF files as an email attachment you need to shrink or compress the PDF file.

There are several ways of compressing a PDF file and it also depends on the type of OS you are using, so the process of compressing a PDF on MAC might be different than that of a Windows system. Here in this article I will explain how you can compress a PDF file on MAC, Windows as well as online (Platform independent).

Compress a PDF file on MAC

If you are a MAC user then compressing the size of the PDF file is really easy and it does not require any software download as MAC has an inbuilt application (Preview.app) which can be used to compress the PDF file in seconds.

The Real Process:

1. The very first process is open the PDF file with Preview application.

2. After opening the file choose “File” at the top of the screen and then click on “Print” or You can also the use the shortcut key (“Command key” + Letter “P”) to print the file, this will pop up a dropdown menu.

3. On the dropdown menu, you can see a button in the bottom left-hand corner labeled as “PDF”. Click the button and another dropdown menu will appear, immediately below the “PDF” button.

4. Click on the “Compress PDF” from this dropdown menu and now you can see a window indicating the compression is taking place.

5. After the compression a Save window will appear, here you need to type the name of the file and location of the file and click on the Save button.

That’s all, now your PDF file is compressed and ready to send over email.

Compress a PDF file on Windows OS

Windows system does not have any inbuilt application to shrink the PDF file size. But probably you can use tools like Adobe Acrobat, FileMinimizer PDF (Commercial, but 30 day free trial is available) ().

Using Adobe Acrobat to Compress

1. Open the PDF file using Acrobat.

2. Clink on “Document” and then “Reduce PDF Size”.

3. You will be prompted to select the version and enter where you want to save the file. That’s all, now it will take 1-2 min for shrinking the PDF file.

You can also use FileMinimizer PDF tool on your Windows system to shrink the size of the PDF file.

Online PDF Compression

The most convenient way to compress PDF file is using online PDF compressor service.

Compress PDF files with Neevia Technology PDF compressor

Neevia Technology PDF compressor is most convenient way to compress your PDF files online. You can select different compression settings from the settings menu. Upload your PDF file and Click on the Compress button. That’s all your file is compressed.

Shrink PDF files online with PDFEscapePDFEscape is an online service which allows you to shrink the size of any PDF file online. You can upload your PDF file and compress it online. This is completely platform independent and you can use it on any system which has an internet browser.

+Ayodhyanath Guru holds a B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering and has worked with various prestigious clients in the IT industry and presently working as a Software Engineer. He is a part time blogger and presently authors the Jafaloo.Com blog. Being a tech enthusiast Guru likes to surf the web and blogs about interesting technical topics like How-To guides, freewares, Tutorials, Software, Gadgets, web applications etc. Apart from blogging he likes coding in Java/J2EE and PHP.

Lion OS has a change in Preview – You need to export the file to reduce its size.

KK Rousseau

Print>PDF does not produce Compress PDF. There are many options in the drop menu but Compress PDF is not one of them.

Sanjaay

Online compressor can upload a file upto 5mb only , which is not helping us in any way

nadjie13

Very helpful! Thanks!

ab

Compressing a PDF file on a Mac.

You can compress a PDF file in Preview.

This process compresses the images in the file. The compressed images look the same as the originals when viewed onscreen, but they may be of lower quality when printed.

To compress a PDF file:

Open the PDF file and choose File > Save As.

Choose Reduce File Size from the Quartz Filter pop-up menu.

http://www.yumpu.com/en Green Hornet

Thanks for sharing this for BOTH – Mac and Windows users! I think for some people it’s not so obvious how to compress a pdf and this is a really good step by step manual. Also, if you llike to make a flipbook out of your pdf, check out http://www.yumpu.com

http://www.facebook.com/yogini.gawali Yogini Gawali

I am trying to do the flipbook.
how do we it exactly. do we go to the create magazine tab???
Please explain

Mathis Büchi

We have just developed a small tool called smallpdf – it is very simple to use and compresses your pdf online very fast without any limits. Please have a look at http://smallpdf.com – we appreciate any kind of feedback! Thanks!

http://www.facebook.com/crystalsray Crystal Stone

Okay yes, this one is AWESOME… very easy to use, and did exactly what it said… Converted my 6 mb PDF to 1.8! I bookmarked this one for sure!

http://twitter.com/gogglespaesano Dominic V

worked perfectly. converted 25 mo pdf in minutes. its a GEM! congrats and thank you

Veritasss

Just used it and converted a 47,272 kb file to 3,477 kb. WOW! Congrats, this is the easiest-to-use conversion ever — I pinned smallpdf.com to my browser.

Shoppal

Nice to know about this app. Looking for something like this since long to compress few reports for my website http://www.shoppal.in/. Thanks.